Zach Smith has Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a genetic disorder marked by progressive muscle degeneration. His lack of muscle control and being in a wheelchair made him a prime candidate for a computer-controlled exoskeleton arm. Talem Technologies gave him an X-Ar exoskeleton that allows him to do many daily tasks, such as drink from a glass and turn on a light switch. Keeping everything level however, proved to be a challenge. That’s ...

Cuff devices for blood pressure measurement are inconvenient, and mobile device apps for blood pressure measurement that are now being introduced may lack accuracy. To solve this problem, a team of Michigan State University scientists has created a new app and hardware for smartphones to measure blood pressure with accuracy that may rival arm-cuff devices. The technology, published in Science Translational Medicine, also includes a discovery...

See-through solar materials that can be applied to windows represent a massive source of untapped energy and could harvest as much power as bigger, bulkier rooftop solar units, scientists report in Nature Energy. Led by engineering researchers at Michigan State University, the authors argue that widespread use of such highly transparent solar applications, together with the rooftop units, could nearly meet U.S. electricity demand and dr...

Michigan State University scientists have pinpointed a new source of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas that’s more potent than carbon dioxide. The culprit? Tiny bits of decomposing leaves in soil. This discovery, featured in the current issue of Nature Geoscience, could help refine nitrous oxide emission predictions as well as guide future agriculture and soil management practices.

Trillions of neutrinos, or ghost particles, are passing through us every second. While scientists know this fact, they don't know what role neutrinos play in the universe because they are devilishly hard to measure. New measurements of neutrino oscillations, observed at the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole, have shed light on outstanding questions regarding fundamental properties of neutrinos.

Michigan State University engineering researchers have created a way to harvest energy from human motion, using a film-like device that actually can be folded to create more power. With the low-cost device, known as a nanogenerator, the scientists successfully operated an LCD touch screen, a bank of 20 LED lights and a flexible keyboard, all with a simple touching or pressing motion and without the aid of a battery.

Research at Michigan State University and published in the current issue of Nature Communications shows how Geobacter bacteria grow as films on electrodes and generate electricity - a process that's ready to be scaled up to industrial levels. The thick biofilm, a gelatin microbial dynamo of sorts, is a combination of cells loaded with cytochromes, metal-based proteins, and pili, hairlike protein filaments discovered and patented by MSU's Gem...

A microbial protein fiber discovered by a Michigan State University scientist transports charges at rates high enough to be applied in manmade nanotechnologies. The discovery, featured in the current issue of Scientific Reports, describes the high-speed protein fiber produced by uranium-reducing Geobacter bacteria. The fibers are hair-like protein filaments called "pili" that have the unique property of transporting charges at speeds of 1 billion...